It’s been several months since I’ve done a Top 10 list, primarily because it’s been too hard to keep up with them weekly. So I think I’ll try once a month instead. I’ve been collecting old beer slogans for a project (more on that later) and so I thought I’d pick my ten favorite ones. I should stress — though it should be obvious — that my choices are about the efficacy of the slogans themselves, regardless of the way I might feel about the beer itself. So for my 19th Top 10 List, I present my favorite beer slogans. Let me know your faves. Here’s List #19:
Top 10 Beer Slogans
| It’s what your right arm’s for. John Courage Beer | |
| If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer. Miller | |
| When You’re Out of Schlitz, You’re Out Of Beer. Schlitz | |
| Guinness Is Good For You. Guinness | |
| Fresh. Smooth. Real. It’s all here. Bud Light | |
| The Happiest Taste In Beer Today. Gunther Beer Gunther is an old brand from Baltimore, Maryland that hasn’t been around for decades. But I love the idea that beer can taste “happy.” What exactly does “happy” taste like? Being a west coast guy, I assume they just meant hoppy. |
|
| Hey Mabel, Black Label. Carling Black Label After a lackluster decade of poor sales, in 1951, Carling came up with the now-iconic Mabel the Waitress campaign, hiring New York actress Jean (sometimes spelled “Jeanne”) Goodspeed to play Mabel in TV commercials and print ads. Sales skyrocketed. In fact, they kept using her image long after she left the business in the mid-19500s to start a family and eventually even included an animated version in later ads. The Mabel campaign finally ended in the early 1970s. For me, I think what made the slogan was the whistle that precedes the slogan in television and, presumably, radio spots. Also, Mabel’s wink and a nod at the end of each ad is also priceless, even when they went to an animated version they wisely kept that element.
Below are two Black Label ads, one an original live action one followed by a later animated commercial. (Note, the sound starts late in the first one. Also, check out the maniacal look of the third bartender. What’s up with that dude?)
|
|
| Here’s to good friends, tonight is kind of special. Lowenbrau This slogan is as much about the song as it is the words. It was sung by Arthur Prysock, an American jazz singer originally from South Carolina. Here are the lyrics and below them is a television commercial featuring the song from the mid-1980s, when the brand peaked.
|
|
| The Friendly Beer For Modern People. Reading Beer I understand most people won’t know this one, because it’s a local favorite I grew up with in Reading, Pennsylvania. But beginning in the 1950s, they started trying to convince people Reading Premium Beer was not their Dad’s beer but was for modern people, a.k.a. young people, and that it was friendly. Like happy, I just love the association they’re trying to make to persuade people their beer is more friendly than other rival beers. To me, that’s just genius marketing. It’s not that other beers don’t taste as good, it’s just that ours is friendlier. Who wouldn’t want to drink a beer that’s friendly?  |
|
| The One Beer to Have When You’re Having More Than One. Schaefer What’s not to love about this slogan? Simple, to the point, and with one of the catchiest jingles ever. It would probably never fly today, because neo-prohibitionists would immediately accuse them of encouraging binge drinking since in their addled little minds more than one already is too many. The video below is not the original version of the jingle, but a jazzier, cooler one. Enjoy!
|
It was, as always, really difficult to keep the list to ten, and a great many colorful beer slogans were left on the cutting room floor, mostly newer ones since I focused on older ones in the list above. Here’s a few more that might have made the list had I gone for more modern slogans:
Always a Good Decision. Samuel Adams; Drink in the World. Sapporo; Hooray Beer! Red Stripe; Life Is What You Pour Into It. Pyramid; Off-Cented Ales For Off-Centered People. Dogfish Head; You’re Not Worthy. Stone
And here’s a few older one I also like but didn’t have room for in the Top 10:
Always Smooth, Even When You’re Not. Keystone; The beer that made Milwaukee famous. Schlitz; Believe. Guinness; The Champagne of Bottled Beers. Miller High Life; For the man who really knows beer. Ortlieb; If I wanted water, I would have asked for water. Labatt Blue; It doesn’t get any better than this. Old Milwaukee; It’s what’s inside that truly counts. Dreher; When you say Budweiser, you’ve said it all. Budweiser; When you see the three-ring-sign, ask the man for Ballantine. Ballantine Ale
Let me know your favorites, and if you see any that you think should have made the list, please post a comment.
Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.
On the regional list … I always liked Rhinelander’s “As refreshing as Wisconsin’s northwoods.”
re: Black Label and ““Pass Up ‘Ladies Beer’….Be A Man About It, Drink Stag!” – Wouldn’t that have been the slogan for Stag Beer- a mid-West brand that Carling would eventually purchase and brew, but not until the 1950’s (with the purchase of the Illinois brewery of the Greisedieck – Western Brewing Company).
You’d think so, but no, by “stag” they mean solo, without women, not the beer called “Stag.”
http://jesskidden.googlepages.com/1940Stag.jpg
Wow, I stand corrected. I read several accounts, both online and off, that attributed that slogan to Carling Black Label. Thanks for that. Cheers, J
Jay- great list…here’s another one- “Hi Neighbor, Have a Gansett!” from Narragansett Beer, once the biggest beer in New England and the official beer of the Red Sox for 40 years enjoy! http://www.narragansettbeer.com/2009/11/vintage-hi-neighbor-jingle
I have to put in a plug for the NW. Weinhard’s most famous ad involves the fictitious Shludwiller, but for beauty I liked, “The best country in the country and the country’s best beer.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eqnGXTh1fM&
And then there’s the original frogs ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0IYUXWn3UY&
How about Hamm’s?
“From the Land of Sky Blue Waters (Waters),
From the land of pines, lofty balsam,
Comes the beer refreshing,
Hamm’s the Beer Refreshing”.
(da-da-dum-dum-dum)
I think the tom-toms in the background burned the “Hamms” in our minds.
I’ve got to go with DFH’s “Off-centered Ales for Off-centered People”
Good stuff – a coworker of mine in the early 80’s had a son who played in a garage band called “Schlong” – I have a T-shirt of theirs with the band’s name replacing Schlitz; in smaller print is the old Schlitz slogan When it’s right, you know it. When it’s good you feel it”
Also love Dogfish Head – & BTW, they now have 3 pubs in the DC suburbs: Gaithersburg MD & Fairfax & Falls Church VA. $5 burger nites on Mondays!
I’m a fan of “Fizzy Yellow Beer is for Wussies” by Stone, but the Hamm’s “Land of the Sky Blue Waters” makes me think of my youth!
Everday you don’t drink, you don’t get that day back!
I like the most is …. If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer. And in the end both of them lost their beer and time Ha Ha Ha
I noticed a cooler with the Red Bull logo in the Lowenbrau commercial. I don’t remember it being around in the mid-eighties. Re Jeff Alworth’s mention of the Weinhard ads. Weinhard brewing had an ad with Oregon border patrol officers at the California line, who would stop beer trucks with the question “Where you going with all that beer?”. The beer xenophobia tied in with the late Oregon Governor Tom McCall’s incantation to visit but don’t stay.
When I was in grad school in Boston (circa 1970) radio ads for Narragansett had the tag line “Your first one is never your last one–Narragansett”. Today it would probably draw the same flak from the neo-puritans as the Schaefer slogan.
Stumped the beer guy with this one “You can travel the world over and never find a better beer.”
The Lowenbrau commercial is a recent-ish parody. The Red Bull cooler is one giveaway; the other is when the guy mouths “WTF” when he gets beer dumped on him and a fight erupts. But that song was etched into my head as a young beer drinker in the ’70s.
Also, how about St. Pauli Girl — “You never forget your first girl.” Say what?!?!
Great list! There have been some really good beer slogans over the years. My favourite has to be ‘It’s Miller Time!’. I reckon that is an excellent piece of marketing.
When I was in the boys glee club in G W High School Alexandria Va in the early fifties. One of the songs we sang was “There is a tavern In the town” At the same time National Bohemian beer was using that music for their ad and it went something like this “Try National Bohemian Beer, what a beer, it is your better buy in beer etc. Just to upset our leader Ms Bane, instead of doing “There is a Tavern in the town”, we would break into Try National Bohemian Beer..At first she seemed upset but she ended up laughing. We had a good time in that class. She was great. She was only about 5′ 1″. Memories.
I grew up in Rhode Island – also worked in my uncle’s liquor store. The most popular beer we sold was Narragansett. Ads on television featured a billy goat saying ” Hi neighbor!
Have a ‘Gansett!” The “hi neighbor” slogan was also set to music in a cute little jingle. The beer was so popular because of the low price, even cheaper than Carling Black Label.
“Why ask why, try Bud Dry”.
I remember Hamms “From the land of sky blue waters” and thought that “Brewed with famous Waukesha water” was also Hamms, but a Wisconsin native says not, though can’t place it with a brand. Any ideas?
The brew that grew with the great northwest. Schmidt beer.
Old Frothingsloch…. the stale, pale ale with the foam on the bottom.
“When You’re Out of Schlitz, You’re Out Of Beer. ”
This one’s gotta be the best out of these 10. Bud Light’s is boring and lame, but I wouldn’t expect anything else from Bud Light. The quality of its slogan matches the quality of the beer – it’s perfect, actually!